AOC is very clear: "I thought I was going to die."

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
1h

She says that this is part of the reason she has waited to tell her story of her experience during the Capitol insurrection. As a survivor, she is used to not being believed. @AOC

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
1h

@AOC says 1 week before the insurrection she was getting texts that she needed to be careful, specifically on the 6th.

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
47m

In a deeply relatable move, AOC says she was singing Nina Simone and feeling great after Ossoff and Warnock won in Georgia. (Just before the insurrection began.)

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
46m

Then after 1pm, AOC says she heard a BOOM. "I hear these huge violent bangs on my door and then every door going into my office."

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
44m

This is harrowing. AOC says she was told to run and hide. She jumped into a bathroom, closed the door, and then realized she should have hidden in the closet. She opened the door to run across to the closet and could hear that someone had gotten into her office.

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
43m

While AOC was hiding she heard people yelling: "Where is she?" They even opened the bathroom door and she was hiding directly behind it. "I thought everything was over," she says of that moment.

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
42m

AOC is very clear: "I thought I was going to die."

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quote:

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
42m

AOC is breaking down in tears talking about her state of mind when she thought she might die. "I had fulfilled my purpose."

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
39m

She says that the man turned out to be a Capitol police officer. But he was looking at her with anger and hostility, and he was there without a partner. Something did not feel right. She wasn't sure if she was projecting.

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
35m

"It felt like a zombie movie," AOC says of the experience.

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
31m

Eventually AOC ended up sheltering in @katieporteroc
's office. She says that she tore through Rep. Porter's office looking for places to hide.

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
25m

AOC is getting choked up talking about the staffers who were willing to put themselves between the representatives and any potential danger entering the office.

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
14m

Later that night, when AOC told @AyannaPressley what had happened to her earlier, Rep. Pressley immediately told her that she had experienced TRAUMA.

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
14m

"Recognizing and admitting [trauma] is already a huge first step. Especially in a world where people are trying to tell you that you didn't experience what you experienced." -@AOC

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
5m

AOC is hammering home that accountability is necessary for safety. Currently there is no accountability, and therefore no safety.

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Emma Gray
@emmaladyrose
5m

"You want to be president so bad that you are going to allow your own colleagues' lives to be in danger," AOC says, calling out the "craven" ambitions of people like Cruz and Hawley.

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